Sign Metacomet Ridge Pact

Our Towns / Southington

Southington's conservation commission ought to sign the Metacomet Ridge Conservation Compact. But not for these reasons:

Peer pressure (even though 17 other towns along this ridgeline have signed it; East Granby being the other holdout).

To prove that Southington officials really do care about the ridgeline. Members of the planning and zoning commission did that last year by adopting regulations that afford substantial protection for the ridgeline against clear-cutting, quarrying and development.

Because the agreement lacks teeth and is therefore harmless.

The compact is a statement about values that lie at the heart of conservation. It shows the importance Southington officials place on preserving the town's natural resources -- whether those resources are a rare plant tucked in some remote woodland or a rugged cliff of traprock. (A quick primer: two million years ago, traprock, also known as basalt, spewed through long cracks in the floor of the Connecticut Valley. Erosion washed layers of softer rock out to sea and exposed a spectacular system of traprock ridges that run north south through the state from Suffield to East Haven and Branford.)

The compact is also a blueprint. It calls for creating an inventory of natural resources along the Metacomet Ridge, establishing priorities for protecting those areas and incorporating them into a town plan. It also calls for the conservation commission and planning and zoning to work together on a plan of conservation and development.

Finally, it calls for public education.

Southington's conservation commission should sign the pact for these reasons. The challenge of balancing protections for Southington property owners with preservation of the town's natural heritage demands this kind of approach.